farm – Tonji and Sylvia's Wildlife Refuge

Fruits! Flowers! New Bird! May 2026

The Big Pond has yielded another new bird for the farm refuge!

Bird #122 is White-browed Crake Porzana cinerea. It was walking on top of the lotus leaves, just like the illustration in the Kennedy field guide!

During our visit we also saw:

One Little Grebe. It’s probably a resident now!

8 Black-winged Stilts.

Egrets.

Buff-throated Kingfisher.

Barred Rails. There were two!

Swallows. I think this is a Pacific Swallow.

A lot of Philippine Ducks.

And Wandering Whistling Ducks! When I visited the Big Pond in the afternoon, at first all the ducks flew away. Then they came back and started grooming and settling in for the night. The Wandering Whistling Ducks and Philippine Ducks were mixed togther. It seems that they are now a mixed flock. Later in the evening, I saw the Wandering Whistling Ducks flying around in a V formation while calling out.

I got a nice photo of a Tawny Grassbird. I tend to have a hard time photographing them. This time I didn’t give up and after many shots of leaves and branches and bird bits, I got a good photo!

The Water Lily pond is ready for the upcoming rainy season! Tonji finished widening and deepening the pond.

Tubby climbing out of the Water Lily Pond. He’s a 4×4 puppy!

He also widened the channel that connects the left and right sides of the Water Lily pond.

We are enjoying the fruits and flowers of summer. The grass is all dried up and and looks like straw. But when you look at the trees, they are green and bursting with flowers!

Narra trees in flower beside the paddock

Balai Lamok with Narra in the background

The guava trees that grow wild all over the farm have small and delicious fruit. I am always on the lookout for ripe fruit. Oftentimes the birds beat me to the fruit. This time there were a lot of hantik (big red ants) making nests in the guava trees and crawling all over the fruit. I was able to get a few though!

I also ate a few aratiles. So sweet!

And here’s a cute video of Tubby bounding down to the grass like a little rabbit.

April 2026 – Hello Tubby!

We have a new, very squishy, very cute French Bulldog puppy. His name is Tubby. Tonji had been wanting to get a French Bulldog and I had been resisting. Then one day my sister messaged me asking if I wanted one. For free to a good home from her architect! I paused for a minute and thought, if it’s a male and black and white, then it’s a sign that I should say yes to this puppy and yes to Tonji’s dream of having a French Bulldog.

I’m glad I said yes and I’m grateful to his owner for giving him to us! We are enjoying having a little one again.

Tubby has such a great personality. He’s very curious and outgoing. Even if he falls into a hole in the ground, he gets right back up again!

I thought Ollie was the one who wanted another doggie buddy. I thought they would play together.

It turns out that Lulu is the one who enjoys playing with Tubby! She licks his face and lets him climb all over her. They play tug of war together. She has become much more active and playful now that Tubby is around.

We also took him for his first swim. He didn’t seem that excited about swimming. Maybe when he has a proper life vest.

Tubby enjoyed running in the grass and even managed to retrieve his toy hoop!

Tubby playing fetch!

the pack walking to the Big pond

It is so much fun to have a little dog again. Tubby’s spunky, go-getter personality reminded us so much of all the fun we had with Barkley that later that evening, I had a dream about Momo. In my dream I was looking for Momo. I kept asking, “Where’s Momo?” When I remembered that Momo was gone, I woke up with a start!

We didn’t get to do much during out visit because we were so excited about having Tubby and also because our visit got cut short by a medical emergency back home.

Tonji is taking advantage of the hot and dry weather to improve the Water Lily Pond. He’s using the CASE skid loader to make part of the pond deeper and wider so that it will hold more water when rainy season comes.

We have tree near the pool that always makes us whether or not it should be there, in such a prominent spot. We bought it in an agricultural fair many years ago, when we weren’t committed to planting Philippine native trees. This month, our “foreign” tree looked the prettiest it’s every looked! It gets to stay for now!

Tonji by the “foreign” tree with his dogs, Lulu and Tubby

It was a short but very nice visit to the refuge. I had to carry Tubby on the drive to the farm. This is him on the drive home!

January 2026 – So Many New Birds!

Our first visit in 2026 was .. mind blowing! We had SIX new species at the Big Pond and one new species in front of the cottage. We had SEVEN new species in one trip!

At the Big Pond we had

Around 14 Garganeys

2 Eurasian Teals (formerly known as Green-winged Teal)

3 Tufted Ducks

2 Little Grebes

2 Eurasian Wigeons

1 Yellow Bittern

Plus we had our regular 100+ Philippine Ducks, 8 Northern Shovelers, and at least 2 Wandering Whistling Ducks. The Wandering Whistling Ducks were in flight, and may have been in a mixed flock.

Philippine Ducks and Tufted Duck in the rain

Standing by the Big Pond and seeing all those species together was mind boggling. It brought to mind all those birdwatching trips we made to ponds all over the country to see these birds. Our first time to see Garganey was in Candaba, Pampanga. Our first time to see a European Wigeon was all the way in Batanes. Our good views of Eurasian Teal are from Saud, Pagudpud. Now they were in our own pond, mingling with the Philippine Ducks, and behaving just like they did when we saw them in those far off ponds!

In front of the cottage we had

14 Ashy Minivet

These are migrant birds and we don’t see them that frequently. It was a surprise to see a flock of them in front of the cottage!

January 2026 was amazing

The weather was great, we had awesome birds, and we are looking forward to February!

photo lifer of a Philippine Serpent Eagle

L-R Ollie, Tonji, Wolfie, Monica, Sylvia, Lulu

And That Was 2025!

Our farm-refuge year ended in October! We missed out on visiting in November and December. We are definitely, certainly going to make more time to visit in 2026! There is so much to see and do at the farm-refuge!

NEW BIRD FOR THE FARM BIRD LIST

We saw a Common Kingfisher. Tonji first spotted it when it landed by the swimming pool. Very nice to have a new migrant visitor! Maybe if we had fish in our ponds we would attract more of them.

This is the iPhone phot taken by the swimming pool. We now have 113 birds in the Farm Bird List!

The next day it was at the Water Lily Pond and I took more photos with my camera.

Migrants

Our other migrant visitors were Gray-faced Buzzards and Brown Shrikes.

Locals

I never get tired of seeing and photographing these three resident birds, Red Junglefowl, Philippine Bulbul, and White-eared Brown Dove.

I am wondering if there are more of them now at the farm-refuge. It used to be We seem to be seeing them more frequently! It’s possible that there are more of them or they are showing up closer to the cottage or they aren’t hiding as much as before or all of the above.

The Red Junglefowl are hanging out in the horse paddock area. I saw them several times in the same area.

Looking forward to 2026

I hope we get to visit the farm-refuge more in 2026, have more projects, and see new birds!